Berkeley Student Senate Wants Ban on Israeli Investments

The Student Senate at the University of California at Berkeley has voted to sell investments in companies that do business in Israel, and to ask the university system to do so as well, The San Jose Mercury News reported. While the Student Senate is not known to have any such investments, the university does. Discussion of the proposal has been contentious, with supporters urging the move as a gesture of support for the Palestinian cause, while critics have accused the divestment movement of oversimplifying the situation in the Middle East, ignoring violence by anyone other than Israel, and holding Israel to standards not applied to countries with far worse human rights records.